U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office alleges in new court documents that Belle Chasse tech vendor Mark

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office alleges in new court documents that Belle Chasse tech vendor Mark St. Pierre paid kickbacks to the chief technology officers of Baton Rouge and Lafayette in exchange for work awarded by those cities' governments. View full size Ted Jackson, The Times-Picayune archive Escorted by his attorney Edward Castaing Jr., Mark St. Pierre, center and his wife, Stacey, enter the Hale Boggs Federal Building to be arraigned at U.S. District Court on Nov. 12.
The schemes, prosecutors contend, were similar in design if not in scope to the conspiracy St. Pierre and former New Orleans hotels in south beach miami chief technology officer Greg Meffert are accused of carrying out at City Hall in New Orleans. For that reason, prosecutors intend to raise the allegations about Lafayette and Baton Rouge when St. Pierre, Meffert and Meffert's wife, Linda, go to trial Jan. 24 .
In New Orleans, the government contends that St. Pierre paid the Mefferts more than $850,000 hotels in south beach miami over four years in exchange for millions of dollars in no-bid technology work that Greg Meffert, in his capacity as a city official in Mayor Ray Nagin's hotels in south beach miami administration, steered to St. Pierre's firms. While acknowledging the payments, Meffert and St. Pierre deny the quid pro quo, saying that St. Pierre was paying Meffert for helping him develop business in other cities.
The government's new motion says that in autumn 2005, St. Pierre hired the wife of the technology chief in Lafayette at $80 an hour under a contract St. Pierre had at New Orleans City Hall. St. Pierre invoiced the city for more than $100,000 for the work she did, the motion says. Those invoices were approved by Meffert, it says.
Around the same time, the motion says, the city of Lafayette hired NetMethods, a St. Pierre-owned company, for a $45,000 technology consulting contract. That contract "later hotels in south beach miami evolved" into a deal for NetMethods to provide crime cameras to Lafayette through Dell Inc., the motion hotels in south beach miami says. It does not specify the value of that contract, but records obtained by The Times-Picayune indicate the work was worth at least $141,000.
The motion also does not name the Lafayette technology hotels in south beach miami chief or his wife directly. But Keith Thibodeaux was the chief information officer for Lafayette's city-parish government in 2005, and he remains in that position now. His name and signature are listed on several invoices appended to the government's motion. hotels in south beach miami Moreover, e-mail messages obtained by The Times-Picayune in a public-records request hotels in south beach miami show that Thibodeaux, Meffert and St. Pierre were in regular communication. View full size Michael hotels in south beach miami DeMocker / The Times-Picayune Linda and Greg Meffert leave Federal Court Nov. 12, 2009.
In Baton Rouge, according to prosecutors, when city officials were considering installing a crime-camera hotels in south beach miami system in 2006, St. Pierre hotels in south beach miami began "showering the Baton Rouge DIS (director of information systems) with gifts." Among the gifts, hotels in south beach miami according to the motion, were tickets to "approximately four" New Orleans Saints games, a "50th birthday party extravaganza" hotels in south beach miami and a number of overnight stays at New Orleans hotels.
Don Evans was the chief technology officer for Baton Rouge's city-parish consolidated government at the time in question. He remains in that position. He did not return phone or e-mail messages Tuesday, nor did his boss, John Carpenter, hotels in south beach miami acting chief administrative officer.
The government's motion hotels in south beach miami does not estimate the value of the gratuities hotels in south beach miami Evans allegedly received, hotels in south beach miami although receipts from some of the events are included as exhibits to the motion. Among them: a receipt showing Evans spent three nights in early 2008 at the Drury Inn in New Orleans, for a total of $850. The same charge appears on St. Pierre's American Express statement.
Along with its allegations about kickback schemes in Lafayette and Baton Rouge, the prosecution's motion also alleges that St. Pierre's 57-foot yacht, the Silicon Bayou, "served as another form of compensation to reward public officials, including Gregory hotels in south beach miami Meffert, who had awarded IT-related work to St. Pierre."
The motion also says that Meffert set up a system at City Hall whereby St. Pierre's firms did not contract directly with City Hall. Instead, hotels in south beach miami his companies were paid -- and theoretically overseen -- by a City Hall contractor, first Ciber and later Benetech. hotels in south beach miami However, these firms were strictly "pass-through" entities that exercised no oversight of St. Pierre's firms, the motion says.
The government's motion serves as a warning to defense lawyers that prosecutors consider the allegations pertinent to the case against St. Pierre and the Mefferts, and will thus seek to introduce the material at trial.
Evans is also a defendant in a civil federal suit filed in Baton Rouge by Camsoft Data Systems Inc. That suit alleges that Camsoft was unfairly hotels in south beach miami shut out of crime-camera contracts in New Orleans and Baton Rouge by underhanded tactics used by Meffert, St. Pierre and others.